Successful model airplane pilots on the international stage

Dear Reader

In this issue, we report on three Swiss teams that competed as model aircraft pilots in various categories at world championships. The F3A national team traveled to Australia with three pilots. In this category, the Swiss are among the world’s best.

The F5J team traveled to Bulgaria with five pilots, two of whom were juniors. In this category, they still have a bit more ground to cover to reach

world’s best. The Swiss Jet Scale team traveled to Italy with nine pilots and their support staff for the 14th Jet World Masters. The team returned to Switzerland with excellent results. Successes like these don’t just happen overnight; first and foremost, they require an active club in the background where such talents can develop and be supported. After this training, these “rough diamonds” are further polished within Switzerland’s seven regional model aviation associations.

Once these model airplane pilots have reached a certain level, they go on to represent Switzerland in national teams at international competitions.

Such a system only works if there is strong, active youth development at the grassroots level; otherwise, the pool of talented competition pilots will eventually dry up.

Markus Nussbaumer